


The Right Way Around

by AreWeAsBandits



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 13:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17325494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreWeAsBandits/pseuds/AreWeAsBandits
Summary: Max goes back in time to the day Rachel got kidnapped in the hopes of helping Chloe find her before it's too late, but Rachel has secrets Chloe isn't prepared to deal with.This is basically my head cannon for what should have happened at the end of LiS and exploring Chloe and Rachel's relationship during the time between BtS and LiS since we don't see that.Chloe's POV, heavily Amberprice. Possible TW because the Dark Room is in there but nothing is explicit. There's some sex in there too, but nothing super graphic. Also there's lots of cussing because it's Chloe.





	The Right Way Around

“Fucking shit, really?” I lean back in the truck, pissed, and stare at my phone. It’s been five years and she calls me now, when I’m parked on the street in front of the house I never wanted to go in ever again because I don’t know what else to do anymore? “Your timing’s gotten pretty shitty, Max Caulfield.” I silence her call.

My fingers don’t need me to guide them anymore, they just move to Rachel’s contact, at the thirty-six times I’ve tried to call her in the past twelve hours, and they hit dial again. It rings, and I don’t breathe, I just close my eyes and pray, and I’m not even sure what the fuck I’m praying to, but if they can get Rachel to talk to me—to tell me she’s okay, to let me tell her how sorry I am—I’ll worship them forever, however the hell they want to be worshipped.

Straight to voicemail. Again.

I throw the phone onto the seat and hit the steering wheel so hard I expect my hand to bruise later.

The phone rings and I lunge for it, holding my breath again—but it’s Max’s picture, again. And you know what? Fine, Max. You want to suddenly play catch up like we’re pals again? Fine. Let me tell you what a fucking trainwreck you left me to claw my way out of.

But when I answer, before I can say anything, Max’s voice comes through quick: “Oh, shit, Chloe, thank god. I don’t have much time. Are you there?”

“Max?” The anger simmers down, just a little bit. “You sound like you just ran here from Seattle.”

“Chloe, I know where to find Rachel.”

The truck, the street, the Ambers’ house—everything fades away and all I can see is holding onto Rachel so tightly I’ll never lose her again and all I can hear is Max saying, “Chloe? Chloe, shit, are you still there?”

“Max . . . How do you even know about—”

“Please just listen to me. I—we don’t have much time.”

“Okay, okay. Just tell me where to find her.”

“This is going to sound really crazy, and I swear, I will tell you everything soon, but I just need you to believe me right now. I’m going to text you coordinates. They’ll take you to an old barn. There’s a hatch under some straw on the ground inside; find it and follow the steps down into the Prescott’s bunker.”

“Max, what the fuck? That doesn’t make any sense. Are you high?”

“No, Chloe. That’s where Nathan has Rachel.”

I shake my head and it feels like all my blood drains away for a second, and then it all comes back boiling. “That fucking weirdo has . . . Fuck, text me the coordinates, now!”

“If you go alone, he’ll just kill you too.”

And my blood’s gone again. “Rachel’s not . . .”

“No, shit, sorry. But we have to hurry or she will be.”

“Fuck. Fuck.” It’s all I can say. My lungs don’t want to take in air anymore.

“I wasn’t sure if David would believe me since he doesn’t know me yet, but he’ll believe you, Chloe.”

“What? Stepdouche David?” None of this makes any fucking sense.

“Yes. You have to tell him that Nathan Prescott and Mark Jefferson are who he’s after, show him the coordinates, and get him to go with you.”

“How do you even know about him, or Rachel? You’ve never met them, otherwise you’d know what a fucking useless asshole David is. I’ll get Rachel myself. Just tell me where she is, Max.”

“Chloe, please.” Her voice breaks, just a little. “I know how much Rachel means to you and it might fuck up everything, but I have to try to fix this in a way that saves her, too. But I can’t lose you trying. Not again.”

“Max . . .” It doesn’t make any fucking sense. It makes absolutely no sense.

“Please,” she says again. She whispers it.

And I can’t really explain why I still feel so compelled to trust someone who ditched me for five years and comes back with a doped-up story like this. This is the part where I should brush her off, tell her she can figure out her own shit for a change, like she left me to figure out mine when I needed her. This is the part where I should tell her to go enjoy whatever drugs she’s on because they sound like they must be damn good ones.

But I think about Rachel, locked in a bunker underground somewhere, and I’m so pissed off I think I could start the forest fire myself this time.

I turn the key in the ignition and turn the truck around. “I’m going to Blackwell to find David. Max . . . Is she gonna be okay?”

Max is quiet for a second. “If anyone can save her, it’s you.”

I press my foot down further on the gas.

 

***

 

It all started at the shitty mill, the kind of place where you might catch something just from touching the walls. It smelled like piss and weed and spilled beer, and it was the kind of place you could get lost in too. No moms to grill you about why you kept flunking tests or missing classes; no douche-holes trying to insert themselves into your life like you were just the newest cadet to whip into shape. I could just meld into the moshpit and get carried by all the bodies moving to the same beat I was and pretend everything hadn’t sucked ass for the past two years, just for a couple hours.

Sounds all lame and poetic, right? Max would love it.

But, really, there’s not a question that the best part of the whole damn thing was Rachel Amber rocking out beside me.

If you’d told me that morning that Rachel fucking Amber would save me from a couple limp-dick assholes pissed off over a spilled beer—and that then she’d mosh with me at the best concert of the year, I’d have said you were shitting me, for sure.

And sometimes—well, a lot of the time—I still think about how just the way she looked at me backstage at school and said, “For me?” was enough to get me to put on a sparkly costume and a goddamn beak and parade around in it in public. How we danced in the glow of a streetlight afterward and made our Arcadia Bay Getaway Plan. I thought a lot about how, when I reallyreallyreally wanted to believe she was serious but couldn’t let myself get my hopes up just for her to ditch me like everyone else had, she looked at me with that fucking look. It’s the one where I felt like she was reading my mind, somehow.

“Chloe!” she said. “What would it take to convince you?”

And she was Rachel fucking Amber, talented and witty and smart and she had goals—actual, real goals with plans to reach them. She was more beautiful than anyone I’d ever seen and I wanted to kiss her so badly I thought that just thinking about it might actually break me.

“How about . . . Um . . .” I stammered and shifted around like a fucking idiot, trying to look at her and not being able to look at her and not being able to take my eyes off her all at once. I’d never met anyone who could make me forget something as fundamental as speaking.

But Rachel was talented or maybe she could actually read minds, because she looked at me for a minute, and then, like she understood, she said, “Oh.”

Rachel took a step toward me and held my hands, and she kissed me, at first just lightly, but it was enough I could feel my skin fucking tingling from the touch.

“Is that convincing enough?” she asked.

I started to say, “Yeah,” but then she was kissing me again, holding my face and pulling me closer and shit, where do I put my hands? Her chest brushed up against mine and I put my hands on her back, then down at her waist, and she kissed me and kissed me and kissed me.

“Holy shit,” I breathed when she pulled away.

Rachel smiled at me. “Right?”

But, most of the time, lately, I think about how hard Rachel cried when I told her the truth about her mom, leaving without seeing her. It broke her; I could see it change her eyes. It broke her and it broke her already-cracked family the rest of the way, and the break wasn’t even clean; it was falling off a skateboard and shattering your radius so it leaves a scar.

And when I think about the day I told her that, I can’t help but wonder if she would’ve been better off never saving me from those assholes at the mill.

 

***

 

I walk into Blackwell screaming, but what else is new?

“David! David!” I’m stomping, half-running, beating lockers with my fists because I want him to find me, for once. Figures that the one day I want to run into David, the whole school seems to be deserted. “What do I have to do to get arrested around here? I’ve got drugs! A bit fat fuckin’ joint, right here, and I’m gonna light it and smoke up and ash all over this goddamn—”

“Chloe, what the hell?”

David marches up to me like I’m an out of line soldier and stares at my empty hands.

“What are you doing? People are trying to learn here.”

“I’ve got coordinates and we’ve got to go, now.” I start to walk away and he grabs my wrist, pulls me back before I yank away from him.

“What are you talking about?”

“You have a hard-on for catching bad guys, right? Well, a reliable source told me where to find some and someone really important is in trouble and I really don’t have time for this shit, okay, David? Just come with me. Please. Bring your guns.”

He stares at me for a lifetime. It feels like forever he stares and I can feel my blood draining away because every second I spend standing here, staring back, Rachel could be a second closer to death and god, I feel sick. I have to move. “Fuck this, I’ll go alone.”

David runs around me, gets to the door first, and I’m sure he’s going to block the door. It’s stupid, it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, where’s the proof?

But he holds the door open and hurries me out, jogging with me to his car and punching the coordinates into his navigation system. David guns it and we peel out of the parking lot like we’re in a movie, tires squealing.

We drive out of town, further and further away, and David calls somebody on his phone and tells them to meet us there. Everything is fuzzy, blurry, and David tries to talk to me once, but it’s like my head’s under water and I can’t hear anything.

“What?” I ask him.

“I need more details, Chloe. What are we walking into, here?”

I lean my head back against the headrest and rub my forehead, trying to squish the thoughts floating around of Rachel dead, lifeless and cold. Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay.

“Chloe?”

“I don’t really know anything. I just . . . Someone told me that Nathan Prescott is at this place and that he’s working with Mark Jefferson to do some shady shit. They’re dangerous.”

“And someone’s in trouble? Did they kidnap someone?”

I close my eyes and I really think I might puke. “The fucker has Rachel.”

It might be my imagination—fuck knows I’m not thinking clearly anymore—but I swear I feel the car lurch a little faster.

 

***

 

I remember that first summer we spent together. One day in mid-July, we lounged around in the junkyard, smoking and drinking and blasting the CDs we burned for each other and talking about dumb shit that didn’t matter. And, of course, because Rachel is Rachel, she got bored quickly and stood up, giving me an exaggerated bow and extending her hand.

I raised my eyebrow and stared at her. “Uh . . .”

“Eloquent, as always. May I have this dance?” She smirked at me and I melted some.

Then I stood up and shoved her shoulder. “Shut up. You know I don’t dance unless I’m drunk and it’s a party.”

Rachel stood upright and put her hands on her hips. “Have you forgotten what you promised me on stage? A little while longer in my schemes.”

“I can’t be held accountable for what I say under duress.”

“Under duress? You were free to answer however you wanted, Chloe Price.”

My face got burning hot and I tried to look away, to get my shit together, but I don’t think it mattered. Rachel always saw everyone and everything. “Holding my hand and talking Shakespeare to me in front of a crowd of people is definitely duress,” I said.

Rachel smiled at me and goddamn, it was fucking burning up that day. “I didn’t know Shakespeare was a kink for you. You are an enigma, Chloe.”

Roasting. It was roasting.

“Fuck it,” I said, sighing and taking her hands, putting one on my shoulder and holding the other, placing my other hand on her waist.

Rachel grinned so broadly and stepped up closer to me, closed the distance between us so that sometimes when we moved her breasts or her hips brushed up against me, and I’m not sure how I didn’t fucking combust that day, or any other day. In hindsight, I’m not sure how we hadn’t already ripped each other’s clothes off by then either. But then, Rachel is a hopeless romantic, wants everything to be just right, and being with her made me useless and terrified—but in a good way, if that makes sense. So I guess that’s why.

She leaned her head on my chest and we stopped moving, just held each other and listened to the music, and her hair smelled like lavendar. “My birthday’s in a couple weeks,” she said.

I smiled, even though she couldn’t see me. “I know.” I’d had her present picked out for weeks. Not giving it to her already had been harder than finding it was.

“The girls at school will throw me a party. They always do.” Rachel stepped back to look at me, breaking the contact. “Will you come?”

I raised my eyebrow at her again. “Will they invite me?”

“If I tell them to.”

“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “Blackwell parties aren’t really my thing.”

“There’s free beer. And a free show of at least one Vortex Club member making an ass of themselves.”

“I saw enough of the Vortex Club being asses while I was still at Blackhell.”

Rachel grabbed my hands and held them. “Please, Chloe? For me? It can be your birthday gift to me.”

“I already got you a birthday gift,” I said, smiling. “But nice try.”

She cocked her head and smiled back. “When did you do that?”

I shrugged. “A while ago.”

“What is it?”

“If I tell you, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of getting it as a gift?”

Rachel put her hands on her hips and studied me for a minute, and there was something really satisfying about doing something she couldn’t figure out until I was ready for her to. She couldn’t read my face and figure it out this time. “Chloe Price.”

“Rachel Amber?”

“You really got me something?”

Was she being serious? “Of course I did. You’re my . . . Uh . . . Shit.”

That summer, I wound up mumbling, crashing and burning a lot around Rachel. To this day, I have no goddamn clue what she saw in it, but I guess she found it endearing because she always seemed to decipher what I was trying to say and she never laughed, at least not to my face. Still, it was fucking terrifying every single time.

Softly, she said, “I’m your what?”

How do you answer that question? I mean, what’s the appropriate way to respond? Because saying, hey, we’ve been making out for two months and we’re with each other practically all the time and basically except for actually having sex we’re in a relationship, have been for a while, so can we just call it that already, please—it just doesn’t sound that poetic. This sort of thing is supposed to be poetic, right?

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, and I felt Rachel’s hands slip into mine again. “Chloe?”

“Just . . . Forget I said anything, okay? Please.”

“Chloe—”

“Rachel, I cannot fuck this up. Not like everything else. I can’t.”

She squeezed my hands. “Why would you?”

“Because . . . Fuck, Rachel.” I pulled my hands away and pulled off my beanie to run them through my hair. “Because I really fucking like you a lot and if this is just, like . . . Just a . . . Thing for you, me saying that out loud fucks it all up. So now I’ve fucked it all up. Shit. Shit, shit.” I sat on the couch and held my beanie and looked down at my knees, waiting for her to laugh or turn around and walk out or tell me we needed to just be friends and I felt sick.

Then Rachel’s feet moved into my field of vision. She knelt down in front of me, put both of her hands around my free hand, and she looked at me until I made eye contact. She was—is—so fucking beautiful, it hurt to look at her. “Do you really think I’m only here because I’m . . . What, bored?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled. “Maybe. Why else? You could have literally anyone, Rachel. The whole school worships you.”

“Yet, I choose to see you, every day. Why would I do that if I could have anyone, unless I really fucking liked you a lot too?”

I stared at her. Just stared, because when she put it that way, it made a lot of sense. But I was still having trouble believing that Rachel Amber honestly wanted to spend time with a stoner fuck up like me. I still have trouble believing that. Maybe I always will.

“What am I to you, Chloe?” Her voice was quiet again, soft. “What do you want this to be?”

“You know,” I mumbled, looking away from her. “You can basically read my mind. I know you know.”

She touched my cheek and said, “Look at me. Please,” so I did. “I need to hear this one from you.”

So I took a deep breath, and I said, “I want . . . You. To be with you. Not just as friends who make out sometimes, but, like . . . Actually with you. Together.”

And Rachel smiled like this was a normal thing, not something causing me to slowly implode. “I’d love to.”

I exhaled. “What?”

Rachel’s reply was to kiss me.

 

***

 

David drives us down a dirt road and I can see an ancient barn up ahead—just like Max said there’d be. We pass through the gate and the car’s still rolling when I jump out, half tripping over my own feet and the momentum. I catch myself and take off, and David yells for me to wait, but I’m so far past waiting I can’t tell you what it looks like anymore.

I wrench the doors open and I’m two steps inside when David wraps his arms around me, holding me back.

“Get off me!” I twist and fight, but he’s strong and holds me.

“Keep your voice down. They sound dangerous, Chloe, you said it yourself. We can’t just go barging in there.”

“Rachel is down there. What if they’re . . .” I can’t finish the sentence.

David looks at me in a weird way, almost like he gives a shit about someone else for once. Almost.

And then he lets go of me, just lets me go, and when I turn around he’s got his gun out. “Stay behind me. Understand? James will be here soon, but until then—”

“You called Rachel’s dad?”

“Yes, I did, because I knew he’d come. And he is. But until then, we’re alone here, possibly out-gunned. This isn’t smart, Chloe.”

I look down at his gun, both his hands clasped around it, like he’s ready. “But you’re doing it.”

He sighs and nods. “If it was Joyce, or . . . You . . . I wouldn’t waste time waiting for reinforcements.”

“So let’s go, man, shit.”

And he leads the way across the barn to the open hatch, down the stairs, to the sealed door.

“Max gave me the code. Hold on.” I check the message.

Punch in the code.

The light turns green. And the door opens.

I can’t tell you what it looked like in there, honestly. I look for Rachel and when she isn’t in that first room, my eyes move to the divider leading to another, and then there’s a voice from the other side of it, harsh: Nathan fucking Prescott. It’s cold and it boils my blood.

“Goddamn it, stop moving so much. Mark, is that you? She won’t fucking stop moving.”

David looks back at me.

Rachel’s still alive.

Nathan’s here alone.

“Mark?”

Nathan comes around the corner, camera in his hand, and David points his gun at him and tells him to put his hands up, and Nathan does, and I don’t stop to see or hear anything else. I run past them, not breathing or thinking, just moving my legs—

And there’s Rachel, duct taped to a chair, staring at me through half-closed eyes, and I exhale a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Chloe?” she whispers.

I run to her, dropping to my knees in front of her chair and clawing at the duct tape until I get it all off and she’s free, and I hold her and kiss her forehead and she wipes her thumb over my cheek and I realize I’m fucking sobbing.

“Are you really here?” she asks. “Am I still here?”

“We’re both here. I’ve got you.”

And then Rachel’s crying too, leaning forward and gripping me tighter than anyone’s ever held me before.

“It’s okay,” I whisper. “It’s okay now.”

“Chloe, I—”

“Shh, Rachel. It’s okay.”

She buries her head against my neck and says, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“None of this is your fault, Rachel. None of it.”

Rachel just holds me and cries harder.

 

***

 

The girls at school did throw Rachel a birthday party, and she did convince me to go (shockingly, I know). The euphoria of hearing that someone you’re kind of embarrassingly into is into you too is a powerful thing.

The party was at Blackwell, complete with alcohol and dumbasses, just like Rachel promised, and I felt grossly out of place, surrounded by the dresses and cashmere and collared shirts. Even when I knew what to expect, I didn’t feel prepared to deal with it.

“Fuck,” was all I could say at first. I couldn’t stop staring at them all. So many people I hated in the same spot at the same time. Still, I pulled out my shirt to look at it, and suddenly the faded raven seemed like a poor choice.

Rachel grabbed my hand, doing her mind reading thing again. “You look hot.” She winked at me and my stomach flipped over. “I hope you’re not going soft on me though. Since when does Chloe Price give a fuck about what the Vortex Club thinks of her?”

“I don’t,” I said, defensive. “Not the whole club anyway,” I mumbled.

And Rachel smiled and kissed my cheek. “I already told you, I think you look hot. Come on.”

I don’t remember much about that party, not the details, anyway. I remember Hayden being stoned and Victoria being a bitch and Nathan being a weirdo. I remember standing around the wall, chugging a beer and chainsmoking cigarettes, trying to pretend I wasn’t actually standing in a room full of shitty music and shittier people. I remember watching Rachel float around the room, making everyone light up when they saw her because Rachel was fucking light personified. She was . . . Alive. I remember her talking to the DJ and one of the songs on the CD I made her starting to play. I remember Rachel sauntering over to me with a giant smile, and I shook my head before she had time to speak.

“I know what you’re thinking, Rachel. No fucking way.”

She grabbed my hand and tugged me gently away from the wall. “If you’re going to date a girl, you have to take her dancing sometimes, Chloe.”

I sighed and just kept shaking my head, but I knew I’d already lost. I lost as soon as she looked at me. I always did.

“Come on, you’re drunk and it’s a party! That’s both of your criteria. Plus, it’s my birthday. Please?”

I tried to say no, I really did—“I am not remotely drunk enough for this.” But she looked at me and she was fucking beautiful—I mean, she’s always beautiful, but she had her hair up, like it was at the Firewalk show, and she was wearing these sort of punk rock clothes that framed every bit of her, every curve, and, “Fuck, why do I even try with you?”

“You’ll catch on eventually,” she said, finding us a spot on the dance floor and wrapping her arms around my neck.

I put my hands on her waist and glanced around, seeing if anyone was watching us. They were.

Rachel touched my face. “Hey, it’s okay. Look at me.”

“People are staring,” I mumbled.

“Well, word on the street is that a stunning beauty is crashing my party tonight. They’re probably staring at her, trying to figure out how to emulate her clearly superior style.”

I rolled my eyes. “They’re probably trying to figure out why someone as fucking beautiful and talented and popular as the birthday girl is giving her the time of day.”

Rachel smiled and moved her hand to play with the hair at the nape of my neck. I shivered and blushed; she smiled even more. “Because this girl is unlike anyone the birthday girl has ever met and she finds her to be great company. And her looks don’t hurt either.”

I rolled my eyes again.

“That’s not a rumor, by the way. It’s verified. This girl’s the real thing,” Rachel said.

“I think I’ve heard that somewhere before.”

Rachel sighed dramatically, because she’s Rachel and everything’s a game if you give her time to make it one. “I must admit, it pains me that you have someone else so wise in your life, Chloe.”

“Just the one person,” I said. “I don’t think the world could handle two of you.”

And then Rachel stood up a bit on her tip-toes and kissed me. It was PG enough, the kiss, but she tangled her fingers a little more in my hair, I shivered and moved my hands up to her back, and then she stepped away, smiling, and my face must’ve been ten shades of red.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

“What? Ditch your own party?”

She shrugged. “I mingled. These parties are never really for me, anyway. They’re for Victoria to show off for her groupies. Besides, if I remember correctly, you’re still withholding a gift from me.” Rachel grabbed my hand and started tugging me toward the door. “Come on! I wanna see whatcha got me!”

So I let Rachel drag me out into the hot summer night.

 

***

 

The thing about Rachel is that she used to sleep soundly. We used to snuggle up wherever—the truck; the junkyard; the lighthouse; my room; her dorm room, once she moved out of her parents’ house—and she’d lay her head on my chest and I’d wrap my arms around her and she’d sleep. Sometimes she’d sleep so soundly and for so long I’d get worried we got sucked into some fairy tale where she’d sleep for fifty years, and I’d kiss her forehead and rub her back until she came back to me, groggy and beautiful and only sometimes pissed I woke her up.

About a month ago, she stopped sleeping soundly. Maybe she stopped sleeping at all. I’d believe it from the bags under her eyes, so puffed up and dark even her makeup skills didn’t completely erase them, and she stopped sleeping with me, so it’s hard for me to know. The text messages got short. The phone calls got missed—at first just sometimes, then a lot. Even when we were together, it was like she was still gone.

The person hugging me back with loose arms wasn’t my Rachel.

The person standing frozen when I kissed her instead of kissing me back wasn’t my Rachel.

She was gone.

She didn’t love me anymore, and she was gone. And I didn’t really know what I’d done, what had suddenly changed, I just knew that it finally did and that as much as it fucking killed me, I wasn’t surprised. I’d known the day would come. Rachel could have always had anyone. It never made sense for her to pick me. Never.

I’m always a fuck up, always poking and picking until I fuck up everything just that little bit more than it’s already fucked itself. So I did what I do, and the night before she stopped talking to me altogether, I got right up in her face at the junkyard and I told her I wanted answers. I told her I wanted to know what the hell was going on, because I knew something was.

And Rachel freaked. She threw her hands up into the air and said, “What the hell are you talking about, Chloe?”

“You are gone, Rachel! You’ve been gone for a fucking month.”

“Chloe, I’m right here. You’re staring at me.”

“I mean you’ve changed, Rachel. Something’s changed with you. You won’t talk to me, you won’t kiss me, you’ll barely fucking look at me.”

“And you say I’m the one with the active imagination.”

“Do not fucking gaslight me, Rachel. Don’t you dare.”

We stared at each other for a minute and I’d give anything to know what she was thinking. Anything.

“Just . . . Can you at least just tell me what I did? Please?”

Rachel exhaled a long breath and brushed her hair away from her face. She wouldn’t look at me. “You didn’t do anything, Chloe.”

“Then what’s changed?” It didn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense.

“Me,” she said, quietly. “I’ve changed.”

I used to think that people who talked about actually feeling their hearts break were being overdramatic saps, but I felt it. I fucking felt that shit and I can still feel it if I think about that day for too long.

“If you’re breaking up with me, just be a man and fucking do it, Rachel.” I wasn’t yelling anymore. I was quiet. It fucking hurt.

“Chloe . . .” She trailed off and I realized she was crying.

And a bigger person, a better person would’ve held her. A better person would’ve comforted her, would’ve been there for her because she was so, so obviously not okay in that moment, or that month, or maybe ever, really.

But I’m not a bigger or better person. I’m not even a baseline good person. I’m a fuck up.

My chest hurt and my throat was tight and I was so nauseous, and there was a part of me that was glad to see her cry in that moment. There was a part of me that was glad she was seeming to finally feel some of the shit I’d been feeling all month.

I’m not a good person.

I looked at her, crying alone in this little place that used to be ours, used to be sacred, and I wanted to smash up the whole goddamn thing.

I looked at her crying and I said, “Let me know when you decide what you’re doing with me. I’m tired of getting dragged along for the ride.”

And I left.

And that was the last time I spoke to her until I found her in the bunker.

 

***

 

Rachel sleeps once they get her settled at the hospital. Maybe it’s the drugs Nathan gave her. Maybe it’s the past month catching up with her. But she sleeps for hours and I’m left alone in a tiny chair by the window, listening to her monitors beep and watching the memory of that last fight replay over and over and over in my head. I don’t think I’ll ever feel anything but guilt.

If I hadn’t started that fight, would she have still been with Nathan?

If I had held her after, would she have still been with him?

Would we still be here?

If I had been less paranoid of her leaving me, would we still be happy? Is this some kind of twisted self-fulfilling prophecy?

If I’d stayed in school, done better, been better, fucked her better, loved her better, would we still be happy?

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out. It’s a text from Max: “Chloe? Please tell me you’re okay. Please tell me you got Rachel.”

I text back: “I don’t know how you knew about all this, Max, but we got her. She’s safe. I owe you a big one. The biggest one.”

I look at Rachel, sound asleep in a hospital gown, hooked up to an IV and three monitors, and I think that even if she does break up with me, even if she never wants to talk to me again at all, I’ll never stop loving her. I don’t think I can.

Max texts back: “Shit, I’m so, so glad. I’ll tell you everything when I get back to Arcadia Bay in a few months. I promise.”

Rachel’s monitor beeps, beeps, beeps. She’s alive.

 

***

 

The hospital discharges Rachel the next day, and we climb into the truck and close the doors and sit in the silence for a moment. She spent most of the time asleep. We spent all of it not talking about anything important. Our parents constantly hovering around was a convenient excuse, but now it’s just us and an ancient truck and the quiet.

“Where do you want me to take you?” I ask.

Rachel’s quiet for a bit, then, “Can we go to the lighthouse?”

“We?”

She stares at the singing man on the dash. “If you want to stay. I get it if you don’t.”

I start up the truck and drive up to the lighthouse.

I park us as close to it as I can, but it is, inevitably, a hike. Halfway up, Rachel stumbles, and I reach out a hand to steady her without thinking about it. I will never, ever forget the look on her face when I do, like my touch physically pains her.

I let go and we hike the rest of the way up to the bench at the top. We sit on opposite ends and look everywhere but at each other: at the bay, at the lighthouse itself, at the diner, at the fucking grass. Anywhere but each other, and we’re surrounded by this quiet again that actually feels thick, somewhere. I’m afraid to puncture it. Is Rachel, too?

I cave first.

“I’m really sorry,” I say. “About the other day in the junkyard. I never should have said that shit, or left you there like that.”

“Please don’t apologize to me, Chloe. For that or anything. I don’t deserve it.” She leans forward, puts her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

“Are you okay?” I ask, and it’s such a dumb question, I hate myself for asking it. “I mean . . . Of course you’re not okay. I just . . . Fuck, Rachel.”

“You shouldn’t be worried about me, Chloe. I’ve been an absolute bitch to you. I brought this, all of this, on myself.”

Her words don’t stick in my brain, they just kind of bounce around against the walls. “Hey, don’t say that. You didn’t—”

“Goddamn it, Chloe, I cheated on you.”

And that’s when the world stops.

 

***

 

Rachel and I went up to my room. She sat on my bed and I closed the door and we looked at each other in silence for a minute. We’d been alone together tons of times before, even in my bedroom, but I don’t know. Something about the way she looked at me made it feel like that day, us being alone together meant more than it usually did.

“Well?” Rachel asked, smiling, breaking the silence. “The suspense over this present is killing me.”

“Close your eyes then,” I said.

She did, covered them with her hands, still grinning away, and I wondered what she was expecting. For a minute, I considered saying fuck it, forgetting the present and kissing her and laying her down on my bed.

Was that what she was expecting?

What if I tried it, and it wasn’t?

I walked to my closet and grabbed the wrapped box out of the back of it, walked it to Rachel, and sat it in her lap. She opened her eyes, looked at it, then at me.

“You’ve been hounding me about that gift for two weeks and now you’re not gonna open it?”

So she smiled and she did. She peeled off the paper and opened the box and pulled out the plaque inside. She held it and stared at it, at the picture of our galaxy and the star circled on it and her name next to it, and all I could think when she kept staring and not saying anything was that I’d fucked it up, like I always did.

Shit. “If you don’t like it, it’s okay. I can give it back or just get you something else or—”

“Did you name a star after me?” she asked, quietly. Finally, she looked at me, and I would’ve given anything to know what she was thinking in that moment too.

“Uh . . . I hope so? I mean, that’s what the website said I was doing. And I thought . . . Well, shit, I just thought you deserved to have something beautiful, just for you. And I know you love stars. But it’s corny and dumb and I can get you somehing else, really.”

Rachel stood up, sat the plaque on my desk, and she kissed me. And it wasn’t like the kisses we’d had before; it was nothing like them. This one was tongues and parted lips and grabbing hands. It was hot and breathless and fucking electricity.

She slipped her hands underneath my shirt to run her nails over my back and I gasped into her mouth. I could’ve died happy right there, kissing her, feeling her touch me like that. She pulled me over to the bed and she broke away to sit on the edge and look at me and she was, without a doubt, the most fucking gorgeous person I had ever, would ever, will ever see.

“Chloe . . .” She said, and I will never forget the way she said it, like my name was the only word in whole fucking universe that mattered.

And I realized that maybe we actually did want the same thing and that thought was terrifying and exciting all at once. “Do . . . Do you really wanna do this? Are you sure? I didn’t do anything special or—”

“Chloe. Shut up and come here.”

So I did.

And it didn’t need mood lighting or scented candles or shitty music or rose petals, because that wouldn’t have been us. It never could have been perfect the way movies want you to think it is, because that’s not us either. It was a little bit terrifying (what if I fucked it up?) and it was messy and it was quiet because somehow, making too much noise seemed too vulnerable too soon, even though we were both already naked and long past the point of secrets. Maybe it was just quiet because we preferred to keep our mouths on each other’s mouths and our teeth on each other’s skin, making marks and bruises that went red or sometimes purple. It was hot and sweaty and a little bit fumbling, but when Rachel grabbed my hair and whispered my name into my ear and bucked her hips up to press herself harder against my hand, it didn’t matter that it wasn’t like the movies because it was fucking perfect anyway. Nothing but that girl mattered and, fuck me, nothing else ever would.

And then, after, I rolled over and held her up against my side, and we lay like that for a long time. We didn’t talk. Rachel just put her head on my chest and wrapped her arm over my stomach and I drew light lines over her upper arm with my fingers. And, for the first time since I met Rachel, I felt like I actually deserved her. I felt like we were equal, like I actually offered her something in return for everything her being around gave me, even if it was just momentary happiness.

But she did seem pretty goddamn happy a minute ago.

I grinned so wide it hurt my face. I can’t remember the last time before that day that I grinned so wide it hurt my face.

Rachel shifted to look at me and she smiled too. “You look pleased with yourself. Or are you pleased with me?”

I kissed her, softly. “Both,” I said.

“I’m glad. It’d be a shame if you never wanted to do that again.”

My stomach did flips. It does that a lot with Rachel; it was pretty constant that first summer.

“So . . .” I said, slowly, trying to get my shit together. “I guess the star is an okay gift?” I will never get my shit together.

Rachel rolled her eyes, then traced her hand over my collarbone, over the red mark she sucked onto the skin just above it. “I love it. And I love leaving marks on you.”

“Well . . . You know where to find me if you wanna leave more.”

Rachel smiled and trailed kisses from my ear all the way down my neck.

 

***

 

It’s fucked up how calm the bay is while my life implodes in front of my eyes. Rachel sits with her head in her hands and I don’t know what I’m feeling anymore. A few days ago I thought I’d fucked everything up and I wanted to fix it, and then I was mad I couldn’t fix it, then terrified my girlfriend had left me, terrified she was dead, so fucking relieved to find her alive, and now . . . What the fuck am I now? I am a new feeling: anger-grief-pain-sorrow all rolled into one shitfest of emotion.

“When?” It’s the only word I can get to come out.

“It started about a month ago.” Her hands muffle her voice but I hear every goddamn syllable.

“It started a month ago? Is it still happening?” Add nauseous-dizzy to that emotion, too.

“No. I ended it last week. I wanted to tell you, but I just—”

“Who?”

Rachel’s quiet.

“Rachel. Who the fuck was it?”

She looks up at me with these eyes like she’s drowning, then she looks out at the bay, and she speaks so quietly it amazes me how clearly the words echo around me when she says, “It was Frank.”

Before, the world stopped. Now it’s on fire. “Frank Bowers? Is that the person you told me you met who changed your life? Fucking Frank Bowers?”

“No, that was . . . I was talking about Mark Jefferson then.”

The world is burning and I wish the flames would just fucking swallow me up because getting charred alive would feel better than this. “Both of them?”

Rachel shakes her head. “No. Shit, no. I never . . . I thought knowing a famous photographer, being in his pictures . . . I thought it would help me get into modeling for real. That’s it. I only ever modelled for Mark.”

“You’re on a first name basis with him? That’s comforting, especially since he just helped his fuckboy devise a plan to fucking kidnap you.”

Rachel closes her eyes and I know I went too far and I feel a pang of guilt for it, an urge to comfort her, but I shove it away because that unplaceable emotion? It’s just anger now, and I keep picking and prodding like I do, fucking it up that little bit more, like I do.

“So you didn’t fuck your teacher, you’ve just been fucking my drug dealer for three goddamn weeks without telling me? Fuck, Rachel, that makes me feel so much better.”

She leans forward and puts her face back in her hands. I pull out a cigarette, light it, and let the smoke fill up my lungs until it hurts not to breathe because that hurt is better than all the other hurts I’m feeling. It dulls them, for a second.

But then I exhale, and they all come right back.

“You know, from the day you saved me at that Firewalk show, I always thought eventually, you’d leave me. One day, you’d remember that you’re Rachel fucking Amber and I’m just Chloe Price. And you’d leave. I just never thought it’d be for Frank Bowers.”

Rachel looks at me with those drowning eyes again. “Chloe . . .”

“I can’t do this today, Rachel. I fucking can’t. I need to just . . . Be alone. Just go, okay?”

Rachel stands up and starts to go, but then she shakes her head, turns and marches back. “No. The first day we hung out, I flipped out on you and told you to leave me alone, but you didn’t, and it was the best fucking thing anyone could’ve done for me.”

“Yeah, but I hadn’t cheated on you then.” I inhale more smoke.

Rachel closes her eyes. “Chloe, you have every right to be mad.”

“Fucking yes, I do, Rachel. And I’m fucking pissed. Fuck, I can’t even look at you. Goddamn it.” I inhale, exhale, and the smoke disappears.

“I never meant for it to go as far as it did,” she says. She sounds like she’s far away, or under water.

The anger is giving away to the grief-pain-sorrow. “Then why even start it?”

Rachel sits back down, sideways on the bench to look at me. “It started . . . For you. Us. I did it for us.”

I shake my head. “God, Rachel, even you’re not that good of a liar. Try again.”

“Chloe—”

“Just go, Rachel. Please, just go.” I stand up, walk toward the lighthouse and turn away because I will not cry here, goddamn it, but I’m losing the battle.

“I’m so sorry, Chloe.” Her voice is quiet, somewhere behind me. “Please, just . . . If you never say another word to me, never give another shit about anything I’ve ever said . . . Please just know that I am so, so fucking sorry.” And her footsteps tell me she’s walking toward the hill to go back down.

“Do you love him?” I ask. I don’t turn to look at her. I don’t want to see the answer. My cigarette’s turning to ash in my hand and I don’t care.

“No,” she says. No hesitation. “I never did.”

I close my eyes, take a deep breath and hold it. “Do you love me?” I don’t want to see the answer.

“So goddamn much.”

The air flows back into my lungs and I drop what’s left of my cigarette onto the ground, step on it and twist it under my boot. “Then why’d you do it? And no bullshit about how you fucked him for me.” I turn to look at her, a few steps away from the bench, looking down at her feet. “The truth, Rachel. Please.”

Rachel keeps looking at her feet. “It started with me dealing for him sometimes as a way to get money. For us to leave, like we planned.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I didn’t think you’d like me doing it. I didn’t want you worrying. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re doing a shitty job of not hurting me this month, Rachel.”

Rachel makes a face like I punched her. I take a deep breath.

“I don’t understand how you dealing for Frank turned into . . . This.”

“I fucked up, Chloe. I really, really fucked up.” She brushes her hair back and crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t know. I’d had a shitty day, we’d had a big fight over some bullshit I can’t even remember now, and I just felt . . . Restless and like I was never getting out of this shithole, so I went to meet Frank to get my shit to sell, like normal, and it . . . It seemed like a good idea to try some of it. So I did.

“I don’t remember much—I’m glad I don’t remember much, but I remembered enough when I woke up in his fucking RV that I ran all the way back to my dorm and I was sick for an hour. I took a shower so hot I thought I was going to scald my fucking skin off, and I still felt dirty. And I thought about you and how bad it would hurt you and how it would fuck up everything, and fuck, Chloe. I didn’t deserve you anymore, or your love. But every single time I went back to you, you showed me so much love, just like you always have, and that just made me feel worse.”

I can’t beathe again. “So that’s why you started avoiding me.”

“I can’t act around you, Chloe. You’re the only person I can’t act around. And I couldn’t face you anymore, not after what I’d done, and I couldn’t bear to tell you either because I knew you’d break up with me and I’m fucking selfish and I couldn’t handle the thought of not having you in my life, even if I couldn’t fucking look at you.” She pauses to breathe and I have only seen Rachel like this two other times: once after she found out who her mother was, and once when she found out what her father did to keep her away.

I try really, really hard to breathe. I can’t.

“So I just . . .” Rachel pauses. “I kept going back to Frank because I could act around him and he bought all of it. Hook, line, sinker. And I tried really hard to tell myself he was a good guy, that he cared about me, that he was who I deserved after what I did—was still doing—to you. And I think, honestly, that all of those things were true. But no amount of telling them to myself made me have feelings for him back. None of it made me stop loving you so fucking much that having all these secrets and avoiding your calls and your touch was fucking killing me. But I’m a fucking coward, so I still didn’t tell you.

“I reached this point where I was just numb when I was with Frank. I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t pretend anymore. I broke it off, and I was trying to work up the guts to tell you. I really was. Even if you broke up with me, it would’ve felt better to be alone than to have to fucking feel him.”

It feels like someone stabs me in the stomach and twists the knife around and around and around because all I can see is Frank kissing her, Frank touching her, Frank loving her the way I’m supposed to.

“I’m sorry.” Rachel’s voice is soft. “Too much detail.”

“Rachel.” It’s all I can say. It hurts too fucking much for anything else.

“You deserve so much better than me, Chloe. Even with me treating you like shit for a month, you cared enough to track me down in a fucking horror film bunker and save my life, when really you should have just left me to die down there. It’s what I deserve.”

I shake my head, take a step toward her, feel a little less numb. “No one deserves that.”

“I do.”

I walk to Rachel, grab onto her shoulders, hold them tight, and look her in the eyes. “Rachel. No one deserves that. No one. Especially you.”

And Rachel shakes her head and pushes me away, hard. “Damn it, stop loving me!”

The bay is so still behind us. “Do you really want me to?”

“I do not fucking deserve you,” Rachel says, and then she’s crying, sobbing through wracking breaths, and I wrap my arms around her and hold her and Rachel’s crying so hard and squeezing me like one of us might float away if she lets go.

“I’d be dead by now if it wasn’t for you,” I say.

She mumbles, “Stop it,” into my shoulder.

“I’m serious. I’d have killed myself, either accidentally or on purpose, I’m not sure which. But I know it would’ve happened. You’ve saved me too, Rachel.”

Rachel steps back from me and says, “Were you not listening? Did you not hear everything I just said? I fucking cheated on you, Chloe. You should not still love me.”

And this question floats around in my head, the one I know I have to ask, but I can’t I can’t I can’t because the possible answers are all terrifying in different ways, but I have to I have to I have to.

“Do you want to break up with me, Rachel?”

“Chloe . . .”

“Please, just answer the question.”

Rachel breathes in deep, then lets it out. “No. The thought of you leaving me is fucking terrifying. That’s why I’ve been hiding all this shit for so long. But I want you to be happy. To be with someone who makes you happy and doesn’t lie to you and isn’t a selfish bitch. You deserve to be so fucking happy, Chloe, every single day.”

“Rachel.”

She shakes her head and sits down on the bench, puts her elbows on her knees. I sit beside her and stare at the glassy water.

“Are you leaving me?” she asks, quietly.

I know that I should still be pissed, and I am, a little bit, but not really at Rachel anymore. I’m pissed at the world, at Arcadia Bay continuing to be the shitpit it’s always been, driving everyone to do shitty things just to try to escape it. And I look over at Rachel and she looks so small, like the broken girl I found crying by the tree she caught her dad cheating on her mom under, or curled up on her bed after she found out the person he was cheating with was actually the birth mom he never bothered to tell her even existed.

Under that tree, I gave her a lighter and she set the world on fire.

On her bed, I gave her a ceiling full of stars and she trusted me. With everything.

So, on the bench by the lighthouse, I hold out my hand to her because it’s all I have. I don’t want the world to burn anymore and the sun is too bright to see the stars. She looks up at me and shakes her head. “Chloe, I—”

“I heard what you said, Rachel. I heard all of it and I don’t wanna think about it anymore. It fucking hurts and I want to be mad at you, but I can’t. I still love you too much. I already thought I lost you once this week and it fucking killed me. I’m not doing it again.”

“I am so, so fucking sorry,” she says.

I say, “I know.”

And Rachel finally takes my hand.

 

***

 

The first few weeks after that are weird. We’re nervous and hesitant and quiet, and it’s a little bit like we’re meeting each other again. I’m still figuring out how to trust Rachel again, how to look at her without seeing Frank on her, and I can’t think about it or I’ll get nauseous and pissed off again and want to go beat the shit out of him like I’ve been wanting to do since Rachel told me about him.

I saw Frank once, just once after I knew what had happened between them. It was at the beach, and Rachel and I were walking along it together, holding hands, feeling as normal as shit had felt since over a month before, before all the shit started. We saw his RV at the same time, and by then it was too late. He was sitting outside of it next to Pompidou, drinking a beer and smoking, and he stood up when he saw us. Didn’t move or say anything, just stood up, froze, and stared at us like we were frozen, staring at him. He looked down at our hands.

I looked at Rachel, expecting her to let go of me. “Do you wanna turn around?” I asked her.

She squeezed my hand tighter and shook her head, looking away from him to me. “No. He won’t bother us.”

Rachel started to keep walking but I held on, pulled her back. “I’m not worried about him bothering us,” I said. “I’ll just kick his ass. I’m worried about him bothering you. Seeing him, that fucking RV.”

Rachel studied me for a second, then cupped her hand on my face and kissed my cheek. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m with you.”

When I looked back up, Frank was gone.

 

***

 

Rachel and I lay on a blanket in the bed of my truck in the junkyard, my left arm under her head, looking at the clouds breezing past us. It’s hot as hell—mid-June—but it’s finally starting to feel like we’re us again, not just broken shells of what we used to be. She takes my left hand and pulls it over to her chest and holds onto it there. She’s been sleeping soundly again, and for a second I wonder if she’s falling asleep now. It’s been a few minutes since she spoke and her eyes are closed.

But then she rolls onto her side and snuggles up a little closer to me and lays her head on my chest. “I never thanked you,” she says, tracing her fingers over the red swirl in my tattoo.

“For what?” I ask.

“Loving me. Even when it’s hard to.”

I shrug and smile at her. “You are pretty damn lovable. ‘Stunner in the looks department’ and all that.”

“I always knew you only loved me for my beauty,” she says, sighing dramatically like Rachel does.

“Not only for your beauty. Your personality’s okay too. Decent.”

She says, “Fuck you, Chloe Price,” but she’s grinning.

And the air hangs humid around us and the clouds keep on floating by like whatever unspoken thing is shifting in the truck bed beneath them isn’t life-altering, but down here, it feels like it definitely is. It feels like we’re in my bedroom three years ago again, Rachel sitting on the edge of my bed and looking at me like I was the only person she ever wanted to see or ever wanted to see her.

“Don’t tease about things you don’t intend to do,” I say, softly.

And Rachel looks at me like I’m the only person she ever wants to see or ever wants to see her. She moves her hand up to my face, gently, holds it there like she’s testing if I’ll bolt or not. “You know I never tease about sex with you.”

“That’s one of the other things I love about you.”

Then Rachel’s lips are on mine, tentative and soft at first, but the kiss turns into something deep and hard and needy because we both fucking need this. Somehow—I’m not conscious of taking off Rachel’s shirt or her taking off mine—but just like that we’re both topless and her bare skin connects with mine when she sinks back down on top of me, and I pull away to look at her, but she’s so fucking exquisitely beautiful I have to close my eyes and take a breath to get my shit together.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “Is this okay?”

“It’s fucking great,” I say. She’s fucking beautiful.

“Then why are you looking at me like it hurts?” Her voice is soft. She brushes a strand of my hair away from my face.

“Because . . .” I sigh. “Because I really fucking want you, Rachel, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to or like this is some fucking apology or penance or whatever. I want this to be because you want it too.”

“Chloe. I’ve never wanted anything or anyone more than I want this—you—right now.”

“You’d tell me if you didn’t?”

“I’d tell you if I didn’t. I promise.”

I nod, and I think about ditching school without even knowing where I was ditching to, jumping onto and then out of a moving train, stealing wine from yuppies and chugging it on railroad tracks; and I realize that from the very beginning, before I even really knew her, I’ve felt compelled to trust Rachel. I just . . . I always knew I could, in the end.

And I find that even now, even through all the shit, I still do. I guess that’s what love does to you.

I tuck her hair behind her ear. “I trust you, Rachel.”

She smiles, says, “I love you,” and kisses me again.

I hold her body close to mine and flip us over and say, “I love you too.” I kiss down her neck, over her collarbone, to her breast, and she moans because we stopped being quiet years ago and fuck, I’m glad we did because making Rachel moan is my favorite thing in this universe.

She tangles her fingers in my hair and I think—I really think—that we’re going to be okay.


End file.
